Dr. Lise Van Susteren

Dr. Lise Van Susteren is an American psychiatrist in private practice in Washington, DC with a special interest in the psychological effects of climate change.

Dr. Van Susteren received her medical degree in 1982 from the University of Paris. She interned at the Hospital St. Anne and the American Hospital of Paris, and at Hospital Tokoin in Lomé, Togo. She completed her residency training in psychiatry at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, DC. Dr. Van Susteren is board certified in general and forensic psychiatry. She has worked as a consultant to the Central Intelligence Agency conducting psychological assessments of world leaders, as an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University Department of Psychiatry, and at community mental health centers in the metropolitan Washington, DC area. Dr. Van Susteren is a volunteer with Physicians for Human Rights, evaluating and testifying on behalf of torture victims seeking political asylum in the United States. She has been a volunteer reader for Metropolitan Washington Ear, an organization that records written material for the blind, and a volunteer provider at homeless shelters, for victims of Hurricane Katrina, and survivors of the earthquake in Haiti.

Dr. Van Susteren is a frequent commentator on television and publishes a blog at the Huffington Post. She hosted a weekly radio segment on WTNT (AM)-570’s The Paul Berry Show called The Doctor Is In. Her publications in professional journals include articles on the Insanity Defense, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Psychiatric Abandonment.

In 1984, Dr. Van Susteren co-founded The Friends of St. Elizabeths, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the humane treatment of the mentally ill and the historic preservation of St. Elizabeths Hospital.

In September 2006, Vice President Al Gore trained Dr. Van Susteren at The Climate Project to educate the public about global warming. She was named to the Board of Directors of The Climate Project in 2009. Dr. Van Susteren speaks frequently to civic, educational, religious, labor, and environmental groups about the impacts of climate change, particularly the health impacts, in the Washington, DC area, nationally, and abroad. In 2009, she organized the first conference to focus on the psychological impacts of climate change. She co-authored The Psychological Effects of Climate Changepublished by the National Wildlife Federation.

In 2011, Dr. Van Susteren collaborated with Our Children’s Trust in a lawsuit against the federal government for breach of its fiduciary duties to preserve and protect the atmosphere for children and future generations.

Dr. Van Susteren serves on the advisory board of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School and is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Wildlife Federation and the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. Since 2009, she has served on the Climate Energy and Environmental Committee of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments in Washington, DC. She also serves on the Policy Advisory Board of Gender Rights Maryland.

In 2011, Dr. Van Susteren co-founded Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, a multi-faith coalition dedicated to organizing people of religion and spirituality to speak out against climate change. She also co-authored the 2013 piece, Assessing “Dangerous Climate Change”: Required Reduction of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature, published by PLOS ONE, an open access peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Public Library of Science.

Dr. Van Susteren is the founder and CEO of Lucky Planet Foods, a company dedicated to providing low-carbon, plant-based, healthy foods for sustainable living.